Feel free to ignore. This is just a catchall for my thoughts on the game.

1. Alex Smith has absolutely nobody to throw to. I'm looking at as much of the field as is shown during the snaps, and nobody is getting open. I'm not even sure Avery and Jenkins played, and Bowe's not exactly known as a receiver who gets wide open anyways. This is extremely troubling, and dooms us against CB-heavy teams like the Seahawks, 49ers, and Patriots (as if we weren't doomed against them already).

The good news, however, is that our non-WR receiving corps looks strong. Charles still looks great. Fasano ran routes very well last night, and Kelce has serious promise. DAT looks like he could be sharp on routes, and another year should allow Davis to develop further.

But this is a team that had the fewest receptions and yardage at the WR corps of every other team in the league, and we didn't replenish any talent in the Draft, which only featured the deepest WR class in NFL history. ****. AND we lost what was a fairly critical piece of that package last year in Dexter McCluster. Basically this means that AJ Jenkins needs to explode this year, that DAT learns the ropes in the slot very quickly, and that Travis Kelce and/or Junior Hemingway takes off, somehow.

2. Really thought Fisher looked really good on all of two plays. I watched him like a hawk, and his runblocking looked far stronger than it ever was last year. Carlos Dunlap is a very big passrusher, however (he's around 290, I think?), and gave Fisher fits on two pass plays, which tells me that the achilles heel Fisher had last year (struggling against strong passrushers) is still going to be a problem this year. On the strip-sack Fisher gave up, Trent Green argued that Fisher did a solid job on the play, but Smith held the ball too long -- which gives me some hope that Fisher is coming along.

But Alex Smith does hold the ball too long, and takes sacks rather than throw down field. That's always been Smith's game. If that's the case, than it's going to be yet another atrocious year in the game threads as folks on this forum cry (justifiably or not) about Fisher struggling to come along. As long as he blocks for Alex Smith, he's going to give up coverage sacks. Last year, however, he was just beat like a rug -- I only saw that once yesterday, when Fisher greeted a bullrush too high and got pushed back into Alex Smith's lap.

3. God, we are so fast now. We've started noticing the trend that John Dorsey has an almost Al Davis-like fascination with speed, and that shows on the field now. Charles, DAT, Albert Wilson, Knile Davis, Donnie Avery, and AJ Jenkins. Travis Kelce burned folks on his long play, too. This is as much a track team as we've ever seen, and hopefully that can compensate on offense for our lack of receiving talent.

It's noticeable on defense as well. Dee Ford is so fast around the edge, James-Michael Johnson runs like a receiver, and it sure doesn't look like anybody is going to be outrunning Phillip Gaines.

4. Rookies had a rocky performance last night, but it was great seeing them out there. Dee Ford was disruptive against the 2nd team OL, and can close that gap in a hurry. He'll need a couple years to add to his passrush arsenal, and also to work on his coverage and run-stopping abilities. That's stuff that Justin Houston had to do (albeit to a lesser extent) and hopefully Ford will improve leaps and bounds in that respect by this time next year. Phillip Gaines looked lost in coverage -- he was always going to be a project, which is why I saw him more as a 5th rounder than as the 3rd rounder we made him. On that long pass to the endzone he broke up, he showed that elite recovery speed that makes him such an outstanding athlete and could make him a great corner, but he also gave up two touchdowns from players that embarrassed him in routes. He does truly have shutdown potential, however, he just is going to take a while to get there, if he ever does.

DAT of course looked brilliant, no comments needed there, and we saw next to nothing of Aaron Murray. Fulton looked... alright. First of all, he looks ****ing massive, and not entirely in a good way. He's got a lot of extra love on those love handles, and he's going to get beat by athletic three-techs all year. But he had a decent performance last night against a DL that was missing their most important piece. I do like that he's getting his experience now. (How bad was Rishaw Johnson -- sheesh, maybe Fulton won the job by default.) I didn't notice hardly anything from Duvarney-Tardif, but I'll be rewatching soon. Albert Wilson looks like he could end up being a UDFA gem -- something this team badly needs this year. Wilson looks great in routes (albeit against 2nd and 3rd defenses), has great hands, and excellent speed.

4. As per the DL, Jaye Howard looks awful against the 1st stringers, and frequently looks bade against the 2nd string. I may revise that when I watch the game again, but I doubt it. There were huge holes opening up time after time against him in the run game. He made a couple plays against the 2nd/3rd string OL, but even then he was getting annihilated. I think he's buried on the depth chart behind DeVito and Catapano, so let's just hope we don't see a lot of him this year. That is definitely not working.

On the plus side, how good did Allen Bailey look? He's decently stout in the run game, but he's FINALLY providing the passrush from the DE position that this team desperately needs. I believe this is his contract year, and I've always loved his athletic potential. If he plays stout and throws in about 5-6 sacks this year, something he's very capable of doing, there's no reason he shouldn't be re-signed. But there is still a lot of football to play.

Vance Walker is a waste of a signing. Wow. Walker provided very little in terms of push at the NT position, and his play against the run was not that great either. He's listed as a backup NT now, but if Poe ever goes down, something tells me the team would rather slide DeVito over than get murdered up the gut thanks to Walker, who has never been a celebrated run defender anyway.

6. I said before that our backup OL was probably the best backup OL we've had on the field since I've been a fan, and you could see that in the 2nd quarter and 2nd half. Against a very deep Bengals team, Knile Davis, Cyrus Gray, and Charcandrick West had holes blasted open for them all game. The Chiefs offensive momentum in this game was almost entirely due to the 2nd string OL dominating on the ground.

7. As I've mentioned, I'll be watching the game a 2nd time, so I'll add thoughts to this thread as I do.

Alex looked like shit. Over threw a few balls, then should have dumped off to a wide open JC, held the ball and took the hit? WTF was he thinking? He will have to play 10 times better than that if he wants a contract.

C D- saved his job on that sweet pass to a wide open Kelce.

Bray-still looks like Bray-nice arm, big turnover. Still doesn't have a field presence and inner time clock to get rid of the ball. Would have liked to see him more.

Ford- looked fast-kept getting pushed outside-needs to spin inside and stop leaving huge gaps for the QB to run in. Should be a good one-glad to see him get some work.

Houston-incomplete- not sure I heard his name.

HUGE holes right up the middle all night. Gashed us on big gains no matter who was in there. Sorenson looked bad as well-but AJ Green does that to people.

DAT- way to early to tell anything- But we might be looking at Offensive rookie of the year. If teams give this guy a yard to move- he will burn them. That run back was very impressive. Speed to burn.

Wilson- makes this team- no way he will make it to the practice squad. Special teams are going to gamble on the kickoffs-so it seems-8 yards deep-no problem-they will run it anyways. We might end up with a few starts at the 7 yard line-more than worth the risk for those big gains.

Nice hard running by Gray to burn the clock. Our RB's are studs.

All in all- nice start-held on for the win -kept Cincy 0-8 against us in preseason. I am sure we will be playing them in the Wild Card game this year-hope it is at home. Time to end the playoff drought.